Does anyone know of something that can be done with pool balls? I shoot pool on a league and would like to have something that takes little preparation but would still look cool. I suppose it would be easy enough to vanish and reappear the chalk or something... but I'm looking for something with a little more wow.

On one of the Garrett Thomas DVDs, he has an interesting prediction effect that uses billiard ball cards. When you open a small wallet to show the prediction matches the selection, you produce an actual matching ball instead of just a card.

David Harkey has an effect where you blow up a black balloon and then pull off the nozzle whereupon it turns into an eight ball. It was written up in his short series in Genii, appears in his video and I think in his big book, Simply Harkey, as well.

Wasn't it Eddie Fields who had the effect where you spread a deck of cards on the pool table and a shot ball stops on the selected card?

Lastly, I think there is a version of the Ashes on Palm done with a cue chalk. I believe it is Jay Sankey's.

Hi Ron, Here is an idea that I use regularly when I am doing bar magic (I dont remember where I came across it).. Use the pool table for a card trick with a regular deck of cards and then scatter the cards all over the table so that no two cards are overlapping.either face up or face down. Can get spectator to do this, having shuffled the deck.Have a boxed deck of either brainwave or invisible deck tabled and ready for use.Next spot the black ball and ask someone to send the black ball around the cushions and that where ever the black ball stops that will be the chosen card.Now show that the ball has landed on the one card that is face up/ face down, depending on your deck.It plays much bigger than it really is.EnjoyCheers from the Emerald IsleJohn Bowden

Originally posted by Frank Yuen:Lastly, I think there is a version of the Ashes on Palm done with a cue chalk. I believe it is Jay Sankey's.

Being that I am a total ametuer and most of the sources you guys give are total greek to me... I could probably find them with a little legwork. I can't beleive I didn't think of the ashes on palm one. I love that... and lord knows I get enough blue on my hands.

ThanksI'll start with that one and look up some of the other ones. It does help that I carry my own chalk on a reel on my belt.

Originally posted by John Bowden: Hi Ron, Here is an idea that I use regularly when I am doing bar magic (I dont remember where I came across it).. Use the pool table for a card trick with a regular deck of cards and then scatter the cards all over the table so that no two cards are overlapping.either face up or face down. Can get spectator to do this, having shuffled the deck.Have a boxed deck of either brainwave or invisible deck tabled and ready for use.Next spot the black ball and ask someone to send the black ball around the cushions and that where ever the black ball stops that will be the chosen card.Now show that the ball has landed on the one card that is face up/ face down, depending on your deck.It plays much bigger than it really is.EnjoyCheers from the Emerald IsleJohn Bowden

The trick of Garretts is called 3 Ball & plays very well, the cards take a bit of getting hold of, I got mine from a suppiers of pool equipmentin Canada. I just use the criss cross force for laymen but would be interested in what other people use for forcing a card from a small packet of cards. Kevin

Thanks guys for the reference................ I now know who to thank for it. Been using it so long that I couldn't remember where I first picked it up.This will also make me take another look at the video "A day with Eddie Fields" as well as his published artful dodges. All Packed with the incredible clever ploys of one of magic's greatest talents.Cheers from the Emerald IsleJohn Bowden

Originally posted by Kevin Fox: The trick of Garretts is called 3 Ball & plays very well, the cards take a bit of getting hold of, I got mine from a suppiers of pool equipmentin Canada. I just use the criss cross force for laymen but would be interested in what other people use for forcing a card from a small packet of cards. Kevin

Kevin,

I use a fan force based on Hofzinser's work, and beautifully described in Ron Bauer's "Chick Trick", an entire act based on Don Alan's "Ranch Bird" and Hen Fetch's original work. He calls it, (With tongue firmly in cheek), "The Hofbauer Force". Well worth looking up. You spread a small packet of cards out in a fan and ask the spectator to touch one. Then, you break the fan at that card and show it to the crowd. It is, of course, your force card...

David Harkey's "Dirty Pool" (the effect described in a post above) is a fantastic opener.You remove some black balloons, take one, stretch it out a bit and proceed to inflate it just a bit. Then you pluck off the nozzle, yet the balloon remains inflated. You then release the balloon and it drops like a rock to the table with a THUD! It's a real, solid 8-ball.

One of the greatest Trickshot/Artistic Pool players of all time is also a magician. Mike Massey from Tennessee sometimes incorporates a little magic into his act - usually the Fields "Invisible Deck" presentation mentioned above. He also had a great trickshot/trick using a Devano Rising Card Deck.

He has a card selected and replaced back in the deck. The deck is placed in its case, which is left open, and the whole lot placed so it stands in a glass. A coin is placed on top to stop anything from emerging prematurely. He then sets a trickshot up around the glass so that one of the balls will make contact with the glass. When he plays the shot and the ball hits the glass, the coin falls off and the Devano Deck does what it is supposed to.

The shot can be as simple or complex as you want, just as long as you remember 2 simple things - 1st, a ball must hit the glass, and 2nd the glass must be strong enough to withstand the impact!

I don't know who else to credit for this trickshot/trick other than Massey.

Tricks and Games on the Pool Table by Frank Herrmann is a reprint by Dover from the unabridged and unaltered republication of the work originally published by the "Tricks" Publishing Company in 1902 under the title "Fun on the Pool Table".

I had that Dover book when I was young, but never mastered much of the material because it requires genuine skill with a cue stick, as well as knowlege of the trick, and my misspent youth wasn't misspent in the poolrooms.

Chef Anton's website has a variety of tricks, betchas, et cetera. Here's an easy one ; you don't need skill, just a pigeon.